Kido's Story: Shadowlands
by Reyka Sivao
Summary: If you want to know the true shape of something, look to its shadow. Oneshot.


**Kido's Story: Shadowlands**

Characters: Kido, Yana (Kaito)

Pairings: None

Continuity: English Anime (with discontinuity declared on the narrator's statement that the Mushiori psychics never used their powers again)

Summary: If you want to know the true shape of something, look to its shadow.

Author's note: Alternate title: Projecting the Shadow.

This was written by request—thanks, Stardust Imaginings! There's no greater compliment than having someone want to see more of my writing!

Anyway, enjoy.

* * *

><p>Shadow.<p>

The word brings up images of darkness and danger, of hidden things, and evil, and things that go bump in the night. It's associated with gloom and deceit and despair.

It's an empty space, where light can't reach.

None of those associations is particularly appropriate for Asato Kido.

He's really a polite, kind boy—though he does have quite a talent for acting, and is more than capable of convincing people otherwise if he must.

And, easygoing as he generally is, he can be provoked to righteous indignation.

But there is something else about shadows, something that fits him quite well.

A shadow is a projection from space onto flatness.

When light hits a solid object, it bounces back or is absorbed, leaving nothing to hit the ground on the other side. This shadow takes on the shape of the object…and it _is_ the same shape, but it's also very different.

When you see a cube, you see it as a square shape. But when the light hits it just right, you can look at its shadow and suddenly see that it's also a hexagon.

Artists use this idea all the time.

After all, if they want to draw or paint a three-dimensional object on a two-dimensional medium, they have to project it out, find that flat reality, before they can go back and reshape it, adding the details that make it look like it takes up space.

Kido is like that, only with people.

He can't see their motives and purposes directly, but he _can_ see the shadows of their actions.

He can see their actions, and, like the artist, can reconstruct the fullness of the person's motivations.

This is the basis for his kindness. He understands people—he can tell when someone's bad attitude is merely the result of a bad day, and is perfectly willing to cut them some slack. He lets it go, because he knows they don't really mean it.

It's also the basis for his capacity for anger.

Because sometimes, they really do mean it.

He knows. He can tell when someone's shadow is twisted beyond recognition, when _they're_ the ones projecting their own shadows out on the world.

And it makes him angry.

This was why he fought so hard against Sensui's team. They were doing exactly what he hated most: twisting their own experiences, their own prejudices and repressed hate and projecting it all on the world at large—and using it to condemn everyone.

* * *

><p>He should have known.<p>

Why hadn't he seen it in time? He _always_ saw!

Kamiya hadn't even been subtle about it.

But he had been so panicked, so utterly desperate, that he had missed the obvious until it was too late.

His subconscious had been trying to warn him, but for once—the worst _possible_ once—he had ignored it. Kamiya had had all the signs of a liar, but he hadn't seen until the nurse had asked why he was there.

He'd been so _stupid!_

And now he couldn't move.

He was the only one who knew, and he _couldn't move!_

Yusuke was right _there_, right across from Kamiya, and he had no way of telling him.

What he wouldn't have given right then for telepathy instead of his stupid shadow powers.

Yusuke started to get up to leave.

In desperation, Kido activated his territory, preventing Yusuke from moving.

Yusuke got the hint: Doctor was here somewhere. But who?

Kido struggled within himself.

He had to find a way to communicate, and _now_.

If he failed now, the whole world would pay.

He concentrated as hard as he could on the shape of his arm, lying dead and useless in a growing pool of blood and shadow.

Shadow…

Abruptly, his perceptions reversed.

Why was he trying to move his _arm_? The shadow, the projection of shape, _that_ was the real thing.

He moved the shadow of his arm instead, because it was the simplest and most obvious thing in the world.

Simple, but by no means easy.

He dragged his shadow-finger through the pool of his own blood, painstakingly spelling out the shape of Doctor's name.

A shape that was so much more pleasant and normal than what he'd finally seen of the shape of Kamiya's personality.

When he completed the last stroke, his mind pitched forward into utter blackness, taking his territory with it.

* * *

><p>They hadn't been able to spare a healer to patch him back up until after everything was already over. He had felt utterly useless and dejected, wishing he could have been there, but Yana managed to cheer him up by relaying his own uselessness in a way that was far more amusing than it must have been to actually live through.<p>

"And besides, you're _terrible_ at Goblin City! Worse than me! Admit it: you wouldn't have been any help in there, and at least out here you could be the backup to our backup while we stood around doing nothing anyway."

Yana's words weren't particularly comforting, since they only confirmed his uselessness…but he was _trying._

And that meant the world to Kido.

* * *

><p>Genkai made them promise never to use their powers again, unless there was a gun to their head.<p>

That was a promise Kido couldn't keep.

He tried. He tried for months to ignore that part of himself, to go back to the way things had been before.

But he couldn't.

Even without his territory activated, he couldn't get rid of that switched-around way of thinking that he had discovered in his moment of need.

He had always seen people differently—and now he could see shapes the same way.

He took up drawing, playing with angle and lighting and outline, rebuilding objects from their shadows the same way he had always been able to reconstruct character from action.

But he stayed true to his word for as long as he could, only using this passive ability and never once activating his territory.

Not until the metaphorical gun was to his head.

He had just been going for a walk, trying to clear his mind. But when he had seen the way light and shadow were playing across the skyline in the sunset, he had stopped for much longer than he intended, admiring the view.

By the time he pulled himself back into the present, it was almost completely dark.

He had turned to go home, minding his own business, when a sound had stopped him.

"Just hand over your valuables, and nobody needs to get hurt."

Oh, now _that_ would never do.

The would-be mugger was standing at the entrance to a dark alleyway, blocking the escape of his intended victim. A streetlamp stood just offset from the entrance, casting the mugger's shadow sharply across the wall at the front of the alley, about as far away from Kido as it could get.

The mugger's victim was protesting that he really didn't _have_ any valuables, but he did have a little money on him, and couldn't he just let him go, please?

Kido had no respect for the mugger. He could tell that this was no desperately poor person forced to take desperate measures…no, this was just a greedy bastard who wanted to live dangerously.

Well, he could satisfy that last wish.

"Let him go."

The mugger wheeled around at the unexpected sound. His victim saw his chance and darted out of the alley, leaving the situation in the presumably capable hands of his rescuer. Kido decided that he didn't have much respect for that man, either.

"Well, I certainly hope you have something to offer me in his place!" roared the man in the most intimidating voice he could manage.

After everything Kido had seen, it didn't even register.

He just stood there, hand in his pockets, examining the situation.

The man's shadow was on the wrong side, so he couldn't stand on it unless he managed to get on his other side. He wondered briefly if it would even work for him to put his hand on the shadow on the wall…it hadn't come up before.

"Not very talkative, huh?" growled the man. "Well, let's see if _this_ gets you talking!" He raised the switchblade he'd used to threaten his first victim and launched himself at Kido.

Kido smiled broadly, and finally, _finally_ allowed his restrained powers to explode out from him.

The man must have had at least a little spiritual awareness, because he stumbled to a halt at the unearthly feeling of a territory's boundary washing over him.

"What the hell?" he muttered, and then remembered his anger. "Don't think you can distract me with your parlor tricks!"

Kido stood with his back to the streetlight, shadow pouring steeply out in front of him, hands still in his pockets.

At least, that's where his physical hands were.

As the man started forward again, Kido's shadow-hands removed themselves from his shadow-pockets and stretched menacingly forward.

The man noticed what was happening only an instant before it hit him.

He let out a cry of terror as Kido's shadow hands lifted themselves up out of the ground and grasped his ankles.

"No! Please! Let me go! Get away from me, you…you _demon_!"

"Not a demon," said Kido. "But I've worked with some. Kindly don't try to use it as a slur."

The failed mugger moved quickly, trying to stab the younger man, but Kido's shadow-foot raised itself out of the ground and blocked the blow.

It was too much for the man, and he fainted.

* * *

><p>Kido went to the police with the story, though he left out some key elements.<p>

"And then he started screaming something about demons and fainted."

They had been a little skeptical, but they'd had a warrant for the mugger anyway, so Kido was able to get away without too much involvement.

But the experience proved too much for his vow.

He couldn't ignore it anymore.

He activated his territory again the next day, just to see what he could do. He reveled in the sense of power, the wonderful feeling of stepping into his own personal world of shadows.

* * *

><p>Genkai was right about one thing: using his abilities <em>did <em>attract low-level demons hoping for a healthy snack of spiritually-aware human.

But to Kido, having to fend off the occasional demon was a price he was more than willing to pay if it meant he could keep on exploring his shadow world—especially since that same exploration made it increasingly easy to fight them off.

He was just finished with convincing another low-level that he wasn't a good target when Yana found him.

"Hey, man, what do you think you're doing?"

Kido's head shot up guiltily.

"I…uh…"

Then he remembered that he had an excuse.

"He attacked me."

Yana looked at him with an odd expression on his face.

Before Kido could get his brain back in order and work out what it meant, Yana stepped forward and touched his forehead.

Yana's territory flashed to life around him, full of a strange _sameness_ that Kido couldn't quite understand.

Then he was looking at himself.

Not-Kido lowered his hand and stepped back to look at Real-Kido.

Even before he said anything, Kido had a pretty good idea what was going on.

"Apparently I'm not the only one."

Not-Kido smiled wryly and nodded. "And it looks like we all started at about the same time."

"All?"

Not-Kido stepped forward again, flowing back into Yana. "Wanna see?"

"What?"

Rather than answering, Yana pressed his hand to Kido's forehead again, and this time that sense of sameness was somehow…different.

And then it was inside him, and he was no longer himself.

Not-Yana stared in surprise at his double—no, wait, he _was_ the double.

"When did—" he started, and then realized that he had all the answers he had required.

Yana had also given up on avoiding his powers, and had learned to control them better, including this new trick of impressing his own image and memories on another.

It was the same with Kaito, as Kido now saw in Yana's memories of Kaito's memories—now _that _was a confusing sensation.

Kaito had used his abilities to prevent a group of bullies from using physical violence against a classmate, and had kept practicing with them too.

Yana had just found out, and had been on his way to ask him about it anyway.

Yana let his form fall away from his friend.

"So, we're all up to speed now, man…what do you wanna do about it?"

Kido smiled.

"What else? We're going to do what we should have from the start: we're going to stick together and watch each other's backs. We're going to work on this together."


End file.
